Unlike in 2022, there is a race in Old Kildonan. City hall’s speaker, an engineer and a school trustee are competing for the north Winnipeg seat. Incumbent Devi Sharma has been city council’s speaker since 2013 and is seeking a fifth term as a councillor. “Residents tell me that they’ve seen me of course at the council meetings and appreciate that I’m fair and firm,” Sharma said. Sharma ran uncontested four years ago, but that’s not the case this time around. “I pride myself on going throughout the term, holding community open houses, engaging with residents in so many different ways, and also having a community office right in the ward,” she said. Like Sharma, longtime school trustee Greg McFarlane has blanketed the ward with signs. “There is a groundswell of change right now,” McFarlane said. McFarlane ran for the NDP provincially in 2019 and says that if elected, he would be accessible. “All I’m hearing at the doorstep is that we need something different, fresh new ideas, a fresh new energy, and with experience, and I have that experience,” he said. Love Randhawa is a mechanical engineer. “City hall like needs common sense,” Randhawa said. He wants to freeze property taxes and water bills. “We are not cutting any services,” Randhawa said. “We have to freeze property taxes, we have a lot of money in the city hall.” Residents in Old Kildonan have been waiting decades for Chief Peguis Trail to be extended from Main Street to Brookside Boulevard. All three candidates say they would push for the $900-million project. “If we don’t make it, like you see if you go on Jefferson, Adsum and Leila, there’s more traffic,” Randhawa said. “There is a disparity between the north and the south,” McFarlane said. “We need to find a way we can bring these sorts of projects to the north side of the city.” “The design phase is done, many chats have happened with other levels of government, and we all need to come to the table to bring that project to fruition,” Sharma said.
